The past few days has the news from Organized Media as well as from other outlets chattering about the possibility of Obama being impeached. This chatter is no doubt driven from speculation that he is about to issue an Executive Order where he will grant amnesty to several million illegal aliens, using the excuse that it's necessary to bypass Congress since Congress has not passed the so-called "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" legislation that he so desperately wants. The arrival within the past months of children from Central America has made headlines for the past few weeks as the Border Patrol has been tasked with dealing with this influx, and that no doubt is catalyzing the situation.
Impeachment talk is also being driven by the decision from House Republicans, led by Speaker Boehner, to start the processing of a lawsuit against President Obama. Obama seems to be bothered not one whit about the lawsuit and doesn't care if it happens or not. I don't have any reason to believe that he would care about the verdict going against him, and he certainly seems, by his actions, to be begging for an impeachment.
The thinking among the Democrats is that impeachment proceedings against the President will motivate their base to come out to the polls and vote to protect control of the Senate by the Democrats. From what I have been reading lately, a lot of incumbent Democrat Senators are worried about being voted out. From my Qualitative Reasoning and Logic class that I had several years ago at San Jose State, the argument suffers from the Fallacy of Appeal to Fear. Simply stated, the argument is "you Democrats, you better come out and vote for us because if you don't Obama will be impeached". Do you see the Appeal to Fear here? The tactic has been used before, as in by the Republicans in 2006 when they told their voters "you better come out and vote for us because if you don't Nancy Pelosi will become Speaker of the House". They could not provide a legitimate reason for being allowed to continue controlling the House, so they had to use the Fallacy of Appeal to Fear.
The Republicans lost control of the House in the 2006 midterm, and the Democrats fear losing the Senate in this year's midterm. Thus like their Republican counterparts, it seems as if they can't come up with any valid reasons to be allowed to retain control of the Senate, and thus the return of the Fallacy of Appeal to Fear. They are stating in their fundraisers that we'd better vote for them or Obama will be impeached.
In this instance, we have something different here. I don't think the Republicans wanted Pelosi as Speaker but I do think the Democrats, especially Obama himself, do want the House to take up Articles of Impeachment. The Republicans seem to be aiding and abetting this by pressing forward with their lawsuit. However, that should not be taken in any way that the Republicans necessarily want to begin the impeachment process, and here's why.
The Republicans tried that in 1998 against Bill Clinton. They presented four Articles of Impeachment against a sitting President who won re-election, alleging obstruction of justice and perjury, and succeeded in getting the impeachment part of the process done. However, impeachment is not the removal of an elected official. It's more like a criminal indictment, and the actual process of prosecution and conviction take place in another chamber.....the Senate in this case. The trial takes place in the Senate, and at the end of the trial the vote takes place. Clinton was impeached, but he was not convicted.....and in case you haven't read the Constitution, you need two thirds of the Senators to vote in favor of conviction before the President or a federal judge can be removed from office. Clinton of course, was not convicted, and finished out the remainder of his term. The Republicans lost.
The memory of that loss is still freshly resident within the minds of the Republican Establishment. They do not see this as a winnable fight, and even if they did, I'm not convinced that they have the political will to do so. It would be so much easier for them to sit back and do nothing while Obama shreds the Constitution. Oh, they might issue a token protest here and there, but it's easier to do nothing. They would gladly allow the President to take us further down the road in this handbasket that we're all in.
Additionally, what if Obama does issue a blanket amnesty to the illegal aliens? News flash: the Establishment Republicans want amnesty too! They lost the House in 2006 while trying to be better champions for amnesty than the Democrats were. They tried again to help the Democrats pass this the next year. The Establishment Republicans in the Senate helped their fellow Democrats in the Senate pass a bill earlier this year. So if Obama does go forward with amnesty, guess what? Those Establishment Republicans who are in favor of this, while knowing all along that the voters don't want it, all know damn well that Obama's fingerprints, and not theirs, will be all over the amnesty.
In a way, it's clever. Amnesty becomes law of the land by Executive Order, and the Establishment Republicans escape credit for an unpopular idea. They then become positioned to campaign on the promise of "we'll repeal amnesty", hoping that the electorate will have no memory of the "we'll repeal Obamacare" promise that we heard four years ago.
But let's get back to the impeachment thing for a minute.
I am hearing the argument that Obama will do everything he can to provoke impeachment proceedings against him. He's going to wait until on or about Labor Day before he does this, which will give him some time to figure out how far he wants to go in his Executive Order. He knows that no matter how far he goes, there will be no retaliation from the so-called opposition party, but he needs to figure out how far he can go before he acts. He may not care if he loses the Senate, and he might want to for all we know as that this will give him two more years to pick fights that he knows he will win.
So where's the downside to him in all of this? None, if he doesn't care about losing the Senate.
However, in the long term, he may be destroying his own party from within.
I don't see that bothering him any since he knows his own party will never give him the credit for that.
He'll still be their Adored Leader.
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